


Consequence

by kittydesade



Category: Push (2009)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-24
Updated: 2010-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-14 01:15:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/143742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittydesade/pseuds/kittydesade





	Consequence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [havocthecat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/havocthecat/gifts).



Cassie caught a late night marathon of Star Trek, once. At least, she thought it was Star Trek. Some science fiction show, all she remembered was this clear glass or plastic chessboard that was in three dimensions at once. That's how she felt. Trying to beat the other Watchers, trying to beat the Pushers and the Sniffs, playing chess in three dimensions against an unknown number of opponents. It made her head hurt thinking about it.

She missed having other Watchers around, too. Even if she'd only ever had her Mom. There weren't any other Watchers they could trust, hell, there was hardly anyone they could trust. Cassie barely trusted Kira, after Carver Pushed her.

They were in Hong Kong for a couple of days and then they'd meet up with Kira again, though. Whether or not she liked it. Because Nick was right, they did need the support, they needed all the help they could get and Kira hopefully was still on their side. Hopefully. Nick didn't talk much about how she'd been when he'd seen her next, after Carver. Cassie saw it. Had seen it. She didn't like it, but she wasn't going to say how it looked and make him even more upset than he already was. He might as well focus all his worry on what they were going to do.

And she would focus all of her worry on how the hell she was going to get them out of this mess once Division found out what they'd done. Wrecking the entire Hong Kong power base of specials wasn't exactly something they could keep quiet. But no one had seen them, so they had a little time.

"For once in our lives," she muttered.

Sketching and walking. Half the reason her drawings were so crappy was because she sketched as she walked. It didn't make for a stable platform. Not when she kept bumping into people. "Sorry," she mumbled, looking up for a second.

 _Shit!_

Pop Girl. No lollipop, either, and no recognition. Cassie's heart started beating again as she remembered Pop Girl had been wiped down to the first meeting. Didn't have a clue what had happened. Didn't recognize Cassie. Most importantly, wasn't pointing a gun at her. She smiled. "Sorry," waved a hand with a gel pen tucked between thumb and forefinger, and kept walking.

That was the idea, anyway.

Pop Girl grabbed her arm as she went past, and Cassie felt an object round and hard in her side up under her arm. "Come with me," she smiled through clenched teeth, eyes bright and expression perky as a band girl in one of those sugar-rock groups.

 _Shit, shit, shit._ Nick was going to kill her. If Pop Girl didn't, first. She hadn't seen this coming. How the hell had she not seen this coming?

 _Because Pop Girl's still a better Watcher than you are, dumbass. Even wiped._

Cassie remembered to breathe and went with her captor to the back of a little corner market, over by the frozen food section. Kind of like where they'd been before, only no beer.

Pop Girl shoved her forward and Cassie stumbled, then turned. If she was going to get shot, she thought, she wanted to see it coming. Then she looked down the barrel of the gun and realized, no, she didn't.

"Who are you? Why am I following you?"

Not what she had expected.

Cassie tried to look as though she had a clue what was going on, which she didn't. Sort of. Her brow furrowed as the future stabbed into her head right above her eyeballs, precognitive transorbital lobotomy. Lunch together, really? "I'm not following you," she said, then changed it. "You're not following me. I don't know you."

She pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket. "Why do I have your picture, then?" Shit and double shit. Her pictures. Her drawings, Cassie had forgotten to grab them when the guy had wiped Pop Girl's memories. It was Cassie from the back, but the outfit was mostly the same, and the satchel over her shoulder. And the streaky colored hair.

"I d—"

"Are you a Watcher? Are you Division?" Pop Girl's voice climbed higher, panicking, and she started jabbing the air in front of Cassie with the gun. Cassie's eyes widened harder, and she bit her lip to keep herself from yelling back. Both of them panicking wouldn't help. "Why can't I remember the last five days? Who _are you?_ "

"Cassie!" she yelled back. "My name is Cassie and would you put that _away?_ "

Somehow, it reassured her that they were both equally freaked out. Pop Girl stared at her a second or three longer, then lowered the gun.

"Why am I following you?"

"You weren't following me…" Okay, now it made sense. Sort of. "Look. You're a Watcher, like I am, right? What do _you_ See?"

Pop Girl frowned. Cassie frowned, too, but the vision didn't waver. Them having lunch, now something was added to it, they looked up and then took off running, but she didn't see why. And they were running in the same direction.

"I See… we… running. Away from something, and to a big house with jade plants and a red door."

Cassie stomped on the jealousy that Pop Girl could see further than she could, even if it was only by a few minutes. It had to be. "So, we're not enemies, all right? At least…" Ugh, how much to tell her. Especially if she found out the truth, later. She had to figure this out on the fly and hope that nothing she did screwed them over. Three dimensional chess. "We don't hate each other. I think. We were on opposite sides for a while, we were all after the same thing. Independence from Division." There, that was safe. She prodded the back of her mind for a second, but nothing came up. Nothing bad, at least. Another flash, her and Pop Girl and Nick in a hotel room, fighting. Or at least yelling at each other. Yeah, she could have predicted that without any visions at all.

"Why was Division after you?" Pop Girl frowned at her, and Cassie shook her head.

"Look, it's kind of a long story. Can we go somewhere and talk about it when you're not pointing a gun at me? Somewhere with lots of people around? No offense, but…" Please, no offense. She did not need this other Watcher angry at her again.

The older girl thought about it for a second, then gave a short nod. "But I'm watching you. You try to screw me over, and…" Another stabbing gesture with the gun. Cassie nodded, still tense and holding herself head and shoulders back as though Pop Girl would try to shoot her again. She made Pop Girl lead the way, too. They headed for a nearby noodle stand, ordering noodles and fish soup.

Cassie took a couple breaths as she sat down, both of them sneaking paranoid glances over their bowls at each other. She slurped more than the other Watcher did, but for a little while it was just two girls having lunch together, quieter than most girls their age but still very normal looking. And feeling. It was the first time she'd felt normal in a while.

"So, it started…" Cassie began to explain, and then stopped. "Hey, are you okay?"

Because Pop Girl was crying.

Not what she'd expected.

The yelling wasn't what she'd expected either, not from the vision earlier, which was gone now. Cassie reached surreptitiously and snagged a towel off a passing cook's belt when she got the flash of soup being flung in her face. "No!" Pop Girl shouted. "No, I'm not okay! My father is dead, my brothers are dead. Most of my family is dead, and no one will tell me what is going on! Everyone I knew is either scared and hiding or dead, and all I have is this picture of you and this stupid red suitcase, and no one will go near me because …" Cassie didn't catch that next part because it was in Cantonese. Pissed off Cantonese. "You will tell me why I'm following you, right now! I want answers!"

Bowl of soup to the face, what do you know. Cassie sputtered for a second, then wiped her face with the towel as calmly as she could.

She hadn't counted on that, somehow. Or hadn't expected it, or just hadn't thought about it. The creepy guy with the long dagger fingernails must not have wiped her entire memory, just the parts that went as far back as her and Nick hooking up, or Kira getting into Hong Kong, whenever it started. Pop Girl would have woken up on the floor of a bar and tried to go home, except her whole home was gone. Her family was gone. Dead.

Cassie blinked back tears from wide, suddenly hot eyes. She knew what that was like way too well. Going home after a long bus ride full of scary people, the cops at the door of their hotel room. Her mother, gone. Only her mother was still alive, and Pop Girl's..

"What's your name?" Cassie asked.

The other Watcher blinked, too. Then scrubbed the tears from her eyes, angry and embarrassed. "My name is Jiao."

Deep breath. Yeah, the fight with Nick was going to be inevitable at this point, wasn't it. Maybe. "Okay, Jiao. My name is Cassie."

"You told me already."

"Right…" she shook her head to clear it, and only succeeded in shaking loose another vision. The two of them, holding hands, laughing shyly over the second bowl of noodles. If that didn't confirm how weird her life was, boy. "Right. Okay… look. I can't bring your family back, and I won't… say I'm sorry for what happened, but I can try and fill in some of the missing pieces, okay?" Please don't be mad at me for what happened. She tried to remember if any of this was her fault, apart from the whole mind-erasing thing. But Division, she thought, had been responsible for most of it.

Division had definitely killed Pop Girl – Jiao, her name was Jiao – her family, anyway. Division and their creepy movie bad guy looking Mover.

Jiao nodded. "Okay…" she said, shaky, but now looking at Cassie less like a boogeyman and more like a normal person. Like maybe they could take some steps towards trusting each other. What a weird thought.

"It started with Division, and this girl they were looking for…"


End file.
